Nursing home leaders hopeful

HOLYOKE - The chairman of the City Council Finance Committee said major problems remain regarding the Holyoke Geriatric Authority, but a meeting last week yielded positive signs.
For the first time, at least in the eyes of some city councilors, authority officials identified concrete steps that could lead to increased revenues to pay the bills, Chairman Todd A. McGee said.
Authority officials said during the Wednesday meeting mothballing an area of the facility at 45 Lower Westfield Road known as Building B could save up to $130,000 a year in maintenance costs.

Another option to make money is to lease Building B, though how much that could generate was unclear, officials said.
The fourth-floor of the authority also is being eyed for possible conversion to a 40-bed unit for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
Also, authority officials for the first time said they would discuss $1.2 million that city officials say the authority was supposed to repay the city for a 2007 land purchase.
Up to now, authority officials have said the city's purchase of 9.5 acres from the authority was a straight land deal and didn't entail the authority refunding the money.
"So it seems like they have some kind of a plan .... (The meeting) was a better step at trying to figure out what we can and can't do for that institution," McGee said.
What the authority owes to the city in utility, retirement board, insurance and other costs is in dispute, with some say it is nearly $3 million and authority officials saying it is less than $1 million.
"Both are a big number," McGee said.
The authority is a quasi-official municipal agency. The council appoints three members of the board of directors, the mayor appoints three and those six then vote in a seventh member.
The facility is an 80-bed nursing home and a day-care program that serves another 80 senior citizens. It employs 177 people with a payroll of $4 million.
An Alzheimer's unit could bring $115,000 a month or $1.38 million a year, said authority board member Steven J. Kravetz, who owns the Center for Extended Care nursing home in Amherst.
But, he said, a study must be done to determine if the market could support a 40-bed Alzheimer's unit and he said a revenue estimate shouldn't be confused with profit.
An additional unit would have expenses, the fourth floor would have to be made secure for such patients and staff would have to get special training, he said.
"In terms of pulling the trigger, it's a matter of making sure the market is there," Kravetz said.
Source http://www.masslive.com/